A report released by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit on Monday suggested that Kansas school districts could save millions of taxpayer dollars through consolidation.
The report had two scenarios that would reduce the number of school districts from the current 293 to either 266 or 152.
“There have been several looks at consolidation in Kansas,” said Dan Bryan, auditor with the Legislative Post Audit. “This is not a new issue and it has been talked about before.”
The first scenario would create 50 fewer school buildings and 230 fewer teachers and administrators, saving districts $18 million, while the second closes 304 schools and lowers the number of teachers and administrators by nearly 1,500, saving $138 million. The audit said this would be accomplished by eliminating all districts with fewer than 1,600 students.
“We wanted to estimate some savings out of this,” Bryan said. “There have not been a lot of studies that have been able to do this.”
State Sen. Terry Bruce, chairman of the Legislative Post Audit Committee, told The Associated Press the information was helpful but noted the political difficult of forcing districts to merge.
“We're just not going to see a huge consolidation effort that we saw in the 1960s,” said Bruce, a Hutchinson Republican.
The first scenario does not affect any of the five school districts in Crawford County, but the second would include a form of consolidation for each of the districts in the county.
For example, the scenario showed Northeast USD 246 consolidating with Girard USD 248, Frontenac USD 249 merging with Pittsburg USD 250 and Southeast-Cherokee USD 247 consolidating with Columbus USD 493.
Bryan was quick to point out that the audit was not, in any way, a “set-in-stone” way of adjusting the education system in Kansas, just a model.
“This is not the one best way to do it and it is not a recommendation, but no one has ever put something like this together,” Bryan said. “This is just an illustration.”
In fact, under the second scenario, based on models and figures, all of the consolidated districts in Crawford County would experience a net loss in funding and operating expenditures.
In the past, area superintendents have been opposed to the consideration of school consolidation calling it something that “sounds good on paper (but) is not always practical in practice.”
